Contents

History

Origins

Magneto vowed to make Xavier's dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants his own crusade.[1] He began recruiting and training mutants while the evil Apocalypse plotted the conquest of the planet through bringing about wars and conflict in which the strong would defeat and destroy the weak. In a world without the Avengers or Fantastic Four there were few to oppose him[1]

The X-Men were sent on their first mission to stop the Horsemen of Apocalypse from seizing control of Cape Citadel. In the course of the battle, Sabretooth defected over to the X-Men due to his unwillingness to participate in mass genocide. Although the X-Men succeeded in in stopping Apocalypse, they suffered a loss as well. Apocalypse sent his son Nemesis to destroy Magneto's school while the were away, killing many including the Scarlet Witch.[2]

Apocalypse continued gain a foothold on the world, taking over much of North America and leaving the world in ruins. Pockets of human resistance existed, the strongest concentration being in Europe. During this time, Magneto formed ties with other mutants who were against Apocalypse's rule. He made allies of Forge and rescued Morph from the clutches of Sugar Man.[3] Magneto also recruited Gambit and Nightcrawler onto the team. Blink was rescued from the pens by Sabretooth. Also during this time Magneto got his revenge against Nemesis by blowing away his flesh, forcing him to wear a special containment unit. Nemesis changed his name to Holocaust and became an even deadlier foe to the X-Men.

Descent came to the X-Men's ranks after Jean Grey was captured and put in the pens, leading to her love Weapon X to disobey orders and go after her. Weapon X lost a hand fighting Prelate Summers. He and Jean Grey quit the team. Holocaust sent his agent Wolverine (no relation to Logan) to kill Magneto's surviving son, Quicksilver. Wolverine saw love triangle forming between Magneto, Rogue and Gambit and decided to take the opportunity to eliminate Rogue or Gambit instead. When Rogue chose to save the life of Magneto over Gambit it caused a rift in their friendship. At the battle's end, Gambit killed Wolverine but left the X-Men, heartbroken.[6] Gambit formed his own group of mutant thieves called the X-Ternals. They stole from mutants in order to help humans in need.

The X-Men inducted Shadowcat onto the team, and she soon forged a relationship with Colossus. While fighting an army of Sentinels on Wakanda, Colossus lost all interest in the continued struggle the X-Men faced. Magneto him off active combat duty and charged him with training the next generation of mutants, Generation Next.[5]

While on a mission in Dallas, Texas, Blink disobeyed Magneto and was kicked off the team.[7] However, after she went on an adventure in the Negative Zone she was accepted back. Banshee, Exodus, and Dazzler also joined the team.

The Age of Apocalypse

Although the X-Men grew into a large unit of mutants, Apocalypse still controlled all of North America. International relations became tense. A cold war was in play between Apocalypse and the Eurasian High Council with doomsday weapons pointing at each camp that threatened to wipe out the entire planet. While Apocalypse and the Council made pacts and treaties, the ancient mutant had no intention of following them and continued his genetic culls of the remaining human population in North America. The X-Men were stationed in the ruins of Xavier's old estate and tried their best to stop Apocalypse's genocide across the globe. Magneto, and Rogue sired a child, Charles. Also, unknown to all, the M'Kraan Crystal, the nexus of all realities, had been fractured due to Legion's tampering with the timeline and threatened to erase everything from existence.

The X-Men travelled to Seattle to stop a genetic culling. There they crushed the Infinities and their commander Prelate Unus. They also encountered the time displaced and nearly insane Bishop. Hearing Bishop's rants about how reality had been distorted and that it was somehow Magneto's fault, the X-Men took him back to their base where after having Rogue absorb Bishop's memories they learned about Earth-616 and the changes in history wrought by Legion. Although this other reality was one where he was a villain, Magneto still believed that restoring the reality where there was still hope for the future was the best course of action, despite the doubts of his fellow X-Men.[8]

Magneto sent his X-Men on various missions to try and verify Bishop's claims while at the same time continued to foil Apocalypse's ongoing plans in the event that Bishop was wrong. He sent Colossus, Shadowcat and their students Generation Next to rescue Colossus' sister Illyana from the slave pens run by Sugar Man to utilize her teleportation powers[9]. He convinced Gambit and his X-Ternals to travel to the far off Shi'ar galaxy to capture a fragment of the M'Krann Crystal, unaware that one of their own, Strong Guy wass really a double agent for Apocalypse[10]. He sent Nightcrawler and Mystique to Avalon to collect Destiny, an elderly mutant who could see the future.[11]

To quash Apocalypse's operations Magneto sent Quicksilver, Storm, Banshee, Iceman, Dazzler, and Exodus to assist the Sentinels involved in a human evac of the east coast.[12] Rogue, Morph, Sunfire, Sabretooth, Wild Child, and Blink went to the west coast to stop Holocaust's cullings and destroy his Infinites plant.[13]

Quicksilver's team hit a snag in their plan when the Brotherhood of Chaos tampered with the computer virus the X-Men had created to prevent the Sentinels from attacking them.[12] Matters were complicated further when a little boy was captured by Abyss, one of the Horsement of Apocalypse. In the end the X-Men succeeded in getting the humans safely evacuated from North America and rescued the little boy from Abyss when Quiksilver shoved Abyss through his own portal.[14]

At the same time back at headquarters, Magneto, fearing for his son's safety, sent Charles away into the tunnels below the mansion with his Nanny robot. Learning the secret location of Magneto's hideout,[15] Apocalypse joined a troupe of Infinites led by Vanisher to attack Magneto. Apocalypse succeeded in capturing Magneto and Bishop. He took Magneto back to his citadel and tortured him. He sent Bishop to the Tabernacle of the Madri in Quebec to have his mind probed by the Shadow King, giving Apocalypse all he needed to know about Magneto's mission to restore the original timeline. When Quicksilver's team returned home he sent Exodus and Dazzler to find Charles. He sent Iceman alert Rogue's team while he, Banshee and Storm rescued Bishop.[16] Quicksilver succeeded in rescuing Bishop from the Abyss at the cost of Banshee's life.[17]

While on the west coast, Sabretooth broke off from Rogue's group and attempted to go after Holocaust. He was defeated but not before he reveal the location of the Infinite processing plant to Rogue.[18] Blink found Sabretooth crucified,[19] and rescued him. Rogue's team stopped Holocaust's operation but he escaped, telling them Magneto had been captured.[20]

Twilight of the Age of the Apocalypse

Magneto's hard fought plan to restore the proper order of reality came to fruition but not without casualties along the way. Colossus and Shadowcat succeeded in rescuing Illyana from the clutches of Sugar Man, but at the cost of his students lives when Colossus was forced to abandon them to die.[21] Likewise, Nightcrawler and Mystique succeeded in getting Destiny however much of Avalon was laid waste.[22] Gambit and his X-Ternals returned to Earth with the shard of the M'Krann Crystal only to lose it when Guido betrayed them to Apocalypse. Guido also recovered Charles Lehnsherr.[23]

With all the X-Men reunited, Rogue rallied them on a final assault on Apocalypse's citadel to rescue Magneto and Charles and to use the M'Kraan Crystal to restore reality before Apocalypse could use it to further his own ends. At this point the the final salvo in the cold war between Apocalypse and the Eurasian High Council had been played out and the doomsday weapons on both sides had been launched.[24][25] Arriving at the citadel Destiny confirmed all of Bishop's claims. Bishop, Destiny and Illyana went into the M'Kraan Crystal where they sent Bishop back in time to change history back to normal. Bishop succeeded in stopping Legion, restoring the original timeline. Both men vanished from the timeline. However instead of erasing the Age of Apocalypse, it diverged into a new reality designated Earth-295.[26]

In the final battle, many mutants died including Angel, Prelate Summers and his brother Alex, and Guido Carosella. Colossus lost his mind and trampled Shadowcat to death. Apocalypse died by Magneto's own hands. X-Man, Sugar Man, Dark Beast, and Holocaust all escaped to Earth-616.[26] Blink and Sabretooth would become unmoored from time by the Timebreakers to fix damaged realities with the reality hopping teams Exiles[27] and Weapon X[28] respectively. Wildchild was captured by mutant haters. He was considered missing before he was eventually saved by Sabretooth and Blink.

As destruction rained down all over the world threatening to destroy everything, all were saved at the last moment when all the nuclear warheads poised to destroy the entire world were suddenly deconstructed. At first everyone would believe that it was Magneto who had saved the day.[5] However, in reality it was Jean Grey having advanced to an Alpha Mutant tapping the Phoenix Force and saving everyone. Realizing what had happened Sinister captured her and kept her hidden while the rest of the world believed she had died.[29]

The Man-Hunt for Sinister

Over the next few years Magneto and the X-Men freed the remaining humans in captivity and helped reconstruct society and reinstall the old political systems and infrastructure that was in place prior to Apocalypse's rule. Magneto was appointed Secretary of Mutant Affairs and was charged with bringing all of Apocalypse's former minions to justice. The most wanted of them all was Sinister.[30]Sinister made a deal with Magneto. Magneto would keep taking credit for saving the world in hopes that the lie would help him reconstruct civilization. In return Sinister would not expose Magneto is he kept the X-Men away from him.[29]

Exodus, Iceman, and Morph were sent on a secret mission, the details of which remain unrevealed. Presently they are missing in action and presumed deceased[31]. New additions to the team included Wolfsbane, Silver Samurai, BeakPsylocke, and Xorn. They found Kirika in one of Sinister's lab, dubbed "X-23". At first she appeared to be a clone of Weapon X. After training her, Magneto bonded her bones and claws with Adamantium.[32]

With the X-Men fully installed as heroes, Magneto began his manhunt for all of Apocalypse's minions. While all the X-Men followed orders, some of them, such as the Silver Samurai, expressed the ethical problems with the plan. In order to install faith in the new government's regime, the X-Men televised the capture of the Hellions. Magneto sent Kirika to collect Weapon X who had been in the wilds of Canada since the defeat of Apocalypse and the loss of his love, Jean.[30]Kirika managed to convince Weapon X to return with her after they both took down Northstar and Aurora, two of Apocalypse's former elite.[32]

The X-Men attempted to convince the Morlocks to come to the surface, leading to a fight that saw Magneto and Xorn injured.[32] Soon, the Exiles, including Blink, Sabretooth, and Holocaust, were transported to Earth-295 to stop the X-Men from capturing Sinister.[33] The Exiles travelled to the lab of the Dark Beast to find data he had collected on the crystal. They briefly clash with the Magneto, Gambit, Quicksilver and Sunfire. The X-Men were soundly defeated and Magneto barely avoided being killed by Holocaust.[34]

The White House was attacked by the Guthrie siblings Amazon, Cannonball, and Icarus. While the X-Men battled them Xorn revealed herself to be Paige Guthrie, formerly of Generation Next. Paige wanted revenge against the X-Men for leaving her to die, and captured Rogue and Charles.[35] Magneto returned the tables of battle. They were forced to kill the Guthrie family, but not before Paige let slip Magneto's deal with Sinister.[36]

Magneto was forced to explain to the X-Men how he was blackmailed by Sinister. Although Weapon X and Wolfsbane both wish to kill Magneto, they restrained realizing they still needed their leader. The X-Men tracked Sinister to his lab on Liberty Island where they came face to face with Sinister and his Sinister Six, which included Jean Grey among their number.[29] The X-Men learned Sinister's goal was to find Mutant Alpha, which he found in Jean Grey. In the climax of the battle, Gambit and Quicksilver were killed, however Jean was freed from Sinister's control. All of the Sinister Six were defeated by the X-Men and Sinister wass kill. In the aftermath, Magneto came and turned himself over to the authorities and was imprisoned. Despite this setback, the X-Men continuied on led by Jean Grey and Weapon X to protect their world from those who would threaten it.[37]

The New Apocalypse

While the world seemed to know peace for some time, this all changed the day a Celestial Spaceship arrived on Earth. A team of X-Men were sent to investigate and the result was that Weapon X took the mantle of the new Apocalypse in order to spare the world Celestial Judgement. The world was once again plunged into war with the X-Men continuing their battle against their former ally, the new Apocalypse. One day, X-Force from Earth-616 arrived on their world in an effort to salvage a Celestial Lifeseed to prevent one of their members from turning into the Apocalypse of their world. While the X-Men initially believed them to be minions of Weapon X due to them working with Dark Beast, they later helped them gain a Lifeseed, at the cost of several of their members. With the X-Men's ranks dwindled Weapon X launched an attack on the last human stronghold.

The human resistance had been creating clones of Magneto's daughter, the Scarlet Witch, after hearing from X-Force that the Scarlet Witch of their world was able to use her powers to de-power almost every mutant on Earth. After finding out about this, Magneto flew into a rage and destroyed all the clones with the exception of one. Since the clones were mindless, a telepath was required to enter the clones' mind and use her powers. Jean Grey volunteered while Magneto and Rogue gave their lives to distract Weapon X. The plan went awry however and Jean was only able to de-power the mutants in a small radius surrounding the clone, resulting in only Jean and Sabretooth being de-powered. Jean and Sabretooth fled the stronghold together with the Human Resistance. While Jean was taken in to be trained, Sabretooth was thrown in prison for his time aiding Apocalypse before becoming an X-Man.